The Five Arrows Part 14

"Where are we?"

"Still following the little dog. We're moving toward the Plaza."

"Pepe. The Englishman's son. Did you know him?"

"He was very young. I only saw him once. He was very brave, _companero_.

The Centro Asturiano sent flowers to his father when the boy was killed.

He died for the Republic, you know." Pepe slowed the car.

"What's the matter?"

"He's stopping. We're on the Calle de Virtudes. He's going into a cafe.

I'll keep going."

The car covered another block. Pepe turned the corner and stopped. "You can sit up now," he said.

Hall saw where he was. "Which bar did he go to?" he asked.

"El Siglo. There's another cafe next door. You can sit behind a hedge at a table there and watch El Siglo. I have done it many times. I'll park the car across the street and watch for you."

"Do you think we can do this alone?"

"Why not?"

"What do we have to do?"

"Who knows? It is the little dog's next move."

"But could you get some friends now?"

"Yes. How many?"

"A few. I'll keep an eye on El Siglo."

"All right," Pepe said. "But we shouldn't lose the little dog."

"That is a chance we must take. If we lose him tonight, we will follow him tomorrow. He will be in my footsteps again."

"That is true," Big Pepe said. "I will be back soon." He drove off down the back street.

Like El Siglo, the cafe where Hall found a table near a boxed hedge on the sidewalk faced the entrance to the apartments of the Presidencia.

The lights were on again in the fourth floor. Hall wondered if the doctors were poking poor Tabio at that moment.

He ordered a pot of coffee and sat back to watch the entrance to El Siglo. A newsboy sold him a late paper, but Hall gave up trying to read it after a few minutes. He bought a box of wax matches and some cigars, turning his back to El Siglo when the tip of his first match flared into flame.

Less than ten minutes after Hall started his vigil, the little man in the straw hat walked out of El Siglo and sat down behind the wheel of a Renault parked at the curb. He sat alone in the car, his face turned toward the Presidencia. Hall looked nervously up the street for a sign of Big Pepe. He jotted the license number of the Renault down on the margin of his newspaper.

There was still no sign of Big Pepe.

The man in the Renault pressed the squeaky rubber horn twice. Another man walked quickly out of El Siglo and got into the back seat of the Renault. Hall squirmed in his chair and looked vainly for Big Pepe. The pa.s.senger was Wilhelm Androtten.

Hall watched the Renault start to move up the Plaza. It rode around the entire Plaza, and, as it started to pa.s.s the cafes again, Hall saw that it was following a black limousine which had just left the Presidencia after picking up two pa.s.sengers.

The black limousine was doing about thirty, picking its way out carefully in the half darkness of the old city. As it pa.s.sed directly in front of Hall's table, one of the people sitting in the back seat lit a cigarette. In the light of the match, Hall could see that it was Varela Ansaldo.

He had to wait another ten minutes for Big Pepe, who returned with two young men. "We lost him, Pepe."

"_Hijo de puta!_ I told you."

"Relax. I know who he works for. We can find them on our own terms now.

I saw them."

"Who?"

Hall looked at the two young men sharing the front seat with Pepe.

"Introduce me to your friends," he said.

Big Pepe grinned. "That is your right," he said. "This is my nephew Miguelito, and this is Juan Antonio Martinez. They're school teachers."

The last he said with almost boastful pride.

The teachers were both slim lads in their early twenties. Hall shook their hands and got into the back of the car. "Let's drive out to the beach and talk," he said.

"No," Miguelito said. "It would not be wise. There are too many strangers there."

His colleague grunted. "Your pistol, Miguelito," he said. "Take it out of your pocket. It is digging a new hole in my a.r.s.e."

"They talk that way all the time," Pepe said, tolerantly. "But they are very educated."

"I am sorry if I talk like a worker," Juan Antonio said to Pepe. "My father was only a miner. I apologize, Your Eminence."

"He is joking," Pepe said. "Miguelito, you are a Bachelor of Arts. Tell me, do workers joke, too?"

"Quiet, both of you," Miguelito said. "_Companero_ Hall will think we're all crazy."

Hall laughed. "I've seen boys like you before," he said.

"We were too young to go then," Juan Antonio said. "But if they try it here, the streets of San Hermano will run with blood before we let the fascists win."

"Juan Antonio is a Communist," Big Pepe said.

The boy did not deny it. "Remember my words," he said, "the flag of the Falange will never fly over San Hermano."

"Not if we are still alive," Miguelito added.

"Will you listen to these children?" Pepe asked. "As soon as you turn your back they put on the _pantalones_ and make the noises of a man!"

"This little dog of a fascist who followed you," Miguelito said, "who is his superior?"